Bush's Middle East tour

Insubstantial pageant

After all the supercharged talk of change in the primaries this week, George Bush's trip to the Middle East served as a reminder that America still has a way to go before it can wave goodbye to all that. As with the US summit in Annapolis last year, it is hard, even for the congenital optimist, to find much to cling on to after Mr Bush's first visit to the region as president. In Prospero's words, "the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind". There could be few pageants less substantial than a belated trip by a discredited US president to the Middle East.

But nor would it be right to dismiss every word uttered as unimportant. There are adjustments in tone or wording which, in the right circumstances, could be built on. Mr Bush called explicitly for an end to the Israeli occupation after his first visit to the West Bank. He called for an end to Israeli settlement expansion and for the Palestinians to confront terrorism. He said the question of Palestinian refugees should be solved by compensation and the chance for them to live in a future Palestinian state. He set out a framework for a deal and said it could be achieved by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, the unity of Mr Bush's concept crumbles after cursory examination. Just to take one, but still vital, point over the future borders of a Palestinian state. Mr Bush said they would require mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 "to reflect current realities". That is code for Israel keeping some of the major settlement blocs that cut deep into the territory of the West Bank, and it is in line with a letter he sent to the former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon three years ago. But on the same trip Mr Bush said that a future Palestinian state should be contiguous, not a patch-work quilt of territories. Harking back to Palestinian criticism of the map produced after the abortive Camp David peace talks seven years ago, Mr Bush said: "Swiss cheese isn't going to work when it comes to the outline of a state." Well, which is it? It is either "current realities" or "Swiss cheese", but it can't be both.

Nor is it clear what the Bush administration's policy is on East Jerusalem, over which Israel claims sovereignty as annexed territory, although it has never been recognised as such internationally. Israel regards settlement activity in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as two different things. So when the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, used the same word about both in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, it raised eyebrows. She called Har Homa a "settlement" which the US had opposed from the start. In Israel it is referred to as a "disputed neighbourhood" within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. But "settlement" is only Ms Rice's word. There is no indication from Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, that Mr Bush has put any pressure him over Har Homa or any other "settlement". On the contrary, Mr Olmert boasted that Mr Bush was the only US president who has talked of an accord based on the 1967 borders "plus". The plus, he said, was an amazing achievement for Israel. Again, which is it? Are they "settlements" that should be dismantled or "plus" which can be kept and traded?

Words like these pre-empt negotiations that, six weeks after Annapolis, have yet to start. The same could be said about Mr Bush's reference to compensation for Palestinian refugees and a chance to live in a Palestinian state. This effectively rules out the right of return to the land that is now Israel, one of the central demands, if not articles of faith, of generations of Palestinians. Negotiations over even a framework agreement will be difficult enough. Many think it wildly optimistic that a deal worth the paper it is written on can be achieved this year. But a US president could lay the foundation for a future agreement by insisting both sides take small steps in the right direction. At the moment Mr Bush is not willing, or able, to do even that.